Consumed(71)

“What are you going to do about my brother?” Kylie asks softly.

I turn my head to the right and look out the window. “What he did doesn’t change how I feel about him.” A strand of my hair blows out of place thanks to the air conditioner, and I tuck it back behind my ear, cringing when my knuckles brush against a bruise along my jawline. “I believe him when he says it was an accident, but why couldn’t he have just—”

When my voice cuts off, Kylie whips her head toward me, her brown hair flying around her face. “What? Told you? Sienna, I have been riding his ass for years about this, and nothing could have prepared me for what he said in that hospital room yesterday. And I don’t think for one second that you wanted to hear that any more than me.”

“So you never expected it to be that?”

She returns her gaze to the road. “I should have, huh? I mean, the signs were all there. Cilla stopped complaining about having a stalker a few weeks after Louisville and then there was the whole thing with Lucas avoiding the damn place. But honestly, I just thought that was because he didn’t want the stigma of Cilla’s rant being attached to the band.” She turns onto the Interstate sharply, muttering a curse when someone honks his horn at her. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I Googled Bryce. The authorities thought it was a mugging gone wrong—he had drugs on him, and he was high as a kite when he died. If I had suspected that . . .”

But she can’t finish the sentence.

“If you think that I plan on saying anything, I’m not,” I say, and she gives me a sad smile.

“If I thought that, you wouldn’t be in this truck with me. I need to know what you plan on doing. My brother loves you, and if Sam is going to pull some crazy shit—and use your head, babe, we both know she is—I want to know where you stand.”

“I . . .”

Where the hell do I stand? I know exactly where my heart lies, and that’s with Lucas, but my head?

“Because I don’t want my brother to go away. I don’t want his niece or nephew not to know him, and—”

The air feels like it’s been punched out of my lungs. “Wait. Kylie, are you pregnant?”

“Surprise,” she says in a flat voice. “Six weeks, and believe it or not, nobody knows except for you and Lucas.”

“Are you okay? This has to be bad for the baby.”

Kylie shakes her head. “I promise I’m fine.” She takes the exit for Gram’s house. When she reaches the stop sign, she looks over at me. “You’re sitting there with your face all bruised up, and the only thing you can think of is me. No wonder my brother is in love with you.”

She’s quiet for the rest of the ride, but when I sneak a glance in her direction every minute or so, I see the tears rolling down her cheeks. When she pulls the Expedition into my grandmother’s driveway, she drives as close as she can to the front door. She cuts off the ignition and rests her shoulder blades back against the leather seat.

“I don’t like to leave the people that I love, and that love me,” I say at last, staring at the front door of the house until the rectangular shape of the wood is blurry. “That’s why I came back here, you know?”

“You’re a good one.”

“I don’t know how I’ll look at Lucas from now on, but I do know this: I love him. That may make me stupid or weak or even na?ve. I don’t care. But no matter if we’ll be together or not, I don’t want that bitch Sam to do this to him.”

“She’s going to ask for more money,” Kylie says.

“How do you know that?”

She lifts her shoulders. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. And he’ll keep giving it to her just to bury what he did. What scares me the most is what happens when there’s nothing left? When she’s taken everything from him, and there’s nothing else for him that will appease her?”

I watch as the door to the house opens, and my grandmother comes out with a warm smile on her face. But that smile melts away quickly when she sees Kylie and me inside of the SUV. Slowly, she backs up into the house, and the door closes behind her.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “It doesn’t matter if I stay away or not does it?”

“Him loving you puts a fire under her ass, but no, it doesn’t. She’s going to keep coming at him.”

Until there’s nothing left to give.

And how long will that take?